Wood River times. [volume] (Hailey, Idaho) 1882-1915, 1887-12-16

led TO pity and work for the deaf mutes
was peculiarly interesting, and tho name
of little Alice Cogswell, of Hartford, is
inseparably associated with his achieve
ments. She was neighbour child whom
Gallaudet, then young Congregational
minister, undertook to rescue from the
mental darkness consequent upon her
deafness, the result Of fever. His expe-
rience with this little girl revealed to the
minister the imbecile condition in which
thousands of his fellow creatures were
existing for the want of some means Of
communication of ideas. Several Hart
ford gentlemen combined in 1915 for the
purpose of starting a school, and sent
Gallaudet to France, where he learned
the Able Sicard's method of education by
means of the manual alphabet and, re-
turning, founded the American asylum at
Hartford. 1t still Rourishes
Gallaudet did not invent a system Of
teaching, but he so improved upon the
methods Of Sicard that he acquainted his
pupils with simple truths of morality and
religion, with ideas of themselves, their
senses and souls, with ideas of God and
the social world, in years time, when
the pupils of European institutions had
not advanced beyond the knowledge of
sounds and the names of sensible objects,
QUALITIES anu tCllOllS. l1tTelll WAS UdllAu-
diets great merit as teacher He put
ideas before words, and caused to bud and
bloom in the light of reason the souls Of
his pupils which had been hidden in dark
ness.
A leading object in the first lessons was
to establish free communication with the
pupils in sign language in reference to
their own feelings and thoughts as excited
by objects seen or events in their lives.
Then the pupil easily comprehended the
feelings of others, and was thus led to
learn the names of simple emotions and
acts of the mind and to think of the in
visible agent-the soul-as the being that
feels and perceives. Gallaudet conducted
the asylum for thirteen years, and was
consulted in it's management till his death
in 1851. He married one of his first class
Of pupils in 1921.
Previous to the labors of Gallaudet the
detectives in this land were almost wholly
without aid. A few wealthy families sent
their unfortunate children to Europe--or
brought over from there private instruc
tors-but for the deaf and dumb rs a body
there was no help. The possibility Of
help was not generally believed. The old
notion-that mental action was absolutely
dependent upon audible speech-stiu pre-
vailed
GallaEdct had given preference to the
manual alphabet, but Horace Mann
arose to advocate the method Of "articu-
lation" and lip reading, and between
these two schools there has ragged Il con-
troversy which bids fair to be perpetual
DIR. S. G. Howe was a conspicuous advo-
cate of the finger alphabet The Horace
Mann day school in Boston and the
Clarke institute in Northampton, Mass,
teach lip reading.
Though the cruel kindness Of parents
keeps many deaf children at home in
blank ignorance, an intellectual and moral
sleep tending toward imbecility, promi-
nent educators assert that they can be
reached even in a state of idiocy.
A name hardly less honored than Gal
laudet's is that Of Laurent Clerc pupil
of Sicard, whom Gallaudet brought from
France as his chief assistant. He acted
as instructor in the American asylum for
forty one years, and statue in his honor
fronts the Gallaudet monument in Hart
ford.
w. X. Chase, whose portrait is among
those given, is prominent i'll the work of
educating the deaf.